Innocence Lost
by MacstersUndead
Summary: A telling of Momo's demise after Aizen's betrayal. momo/hitsu. WARNING: momo or hitsu or momo/hitsu fans might find the ending... disappointing.
1. Chapter 1: Introduction

(A/N: Comment and critique appreciated.)

Bleach: "Innocence Lost"

Hinamori Momo, once a loyal subordinate for Captain Aizen, diagnosed clinically insane by the Fourth Division, is placed under solitary confinement in the psychological ward. It had already been two weeks.

Imprisoned by the walls supposedly made of genuine concern and worry, she gazed at the moonlight, seeping from the small barred window of the dark padded room. The tears from her face reflected like diamonds as they streamed down her face, staining her pure white straightjacket. Her cries of despair could no longer be kept inside, for all of her friends had abandoned her.

Suddenly, her eyes widened in fear and her cries grew silent, as familiar footsteps echoed through the silence of the night. As Momo's cell door opened, a twisted smile crept from the shadows. As the man's hand stretched into an inside pocket of his lab coat, Momo cringed in helpless bondage. Licking his lips, the man looked upon her with lustful, demonic eyes.

"It's time for your medicine, my sweet."

Momo was unable to speak. Her eyes shook spasmodically, paralyzed with fear. Sweat and tears mixed down her face, a face that could only be made from true suffering. The man's eyes gleamed with sick delight, piercing Momo's arm with a rusty syringe. All of her muscles had lost function. Like a rag doll, she was sprawled on the floor to become his plaything.

Despite all that was going to happen, she closed her eyes and prayed in the sanctity of her mind. Every night he would come despite her prayers, but it was the only hope she had left.

"Send an angel to rescue me."

--

"How is she doing, Doctor?"

Unohana, captain of the fourth division, was unable to give Hitsugaya a reassuring smile.

"Her physical condition has completely recovered from the near fatal stab wound under our care."

Hitsugaya bellowed a sigh of relief, grateful that his friend is safe.

"However, I've made it my decision to continue her treatment, as Momo's delirium is becoming more severe."

"You mean– she still believes that Aizen is innocent despite his blatant betrayal on Soul Society."

"This condition was most likely caused by the extreme levels of shock. Sadly, unlike physical wounds, I cannot heal her remaining condition with my powers."

"It's hard to imagine, isn't it? If you worked so hard to gain the respect of someone you admire, only to realize that – why would Aizen do such a horrible thing?"

"There is no need to ask such pointless questions." she responded, "Right now, Hinamori needs a friend by her side. Isane will escort you to her, but unfortunately I can't allow you two to talk in a more open setting. If you want to visit her, you must be in her cell with her. By entering the room, you waiver any risks that you may be harmed. Of course, that should be no worry for a Captain like you."

Hitsugaya nodded, and mentally thanked her for everything that she had done for Momo.

Footsteps echoed through the hallways of Momo's cell. Momo quickly opened her eyes and looked at the small window. To her confusion, she saw that it was still during the day. Oh how she missed living in the sunshine, to smell the flowers and marvel at their beauty, walk among nature's wonderful creatures, to laugh and cry with her friends, and to pursue an enjoyable never-ending purpose. However, she knew that the only feeling she could feel was fear; that he would come back that night.

"Momo, there's someone that would like to see you."

As the soft words of Isane reached Momo's ear, the door unlocked and opened so that a patch of white hair peeked from the hallway.

"Snowy!" she exclaimed excitedly. Closing the door behind him, Hitsugaya smiled with the same joyful excitement.

Without losing the situational formality he replied jokingly, "Bed Wetter Momo."

Despite being in bondage in the straightjacket, her emotion couldn't be stopped as she leaped towards Hitsugaya's arms. Taking him by surprise, Hitsugaya lost his balance as he fell under Momo's weight. As she lay upon him with her face inches from his, she was but for a moment lost in his eyes. Snapping out of her trance, she immediately rolled off of him, turning her body away in shame. In an upright position, her eyes became fixed on one of the padded walls.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you like that. I was just really excited and . . ."

Hitsugaya quickly sat up, and opened his sly eyes. As she continued talking, he pranced towards her silently on all fours like a playful fox, and when he was in breathing distance from behind, wrapped his arms tightly around her. Pleasantly surprised, her mouth opened slightly as she uttered a soft passionate cry. Hugging her close to his heart, Hitsugaya's mouth moved ever closer towards Momo's left ear. Tenderly, he moved his lips as to whisper what he really felt.

"I missed you too."

Momo wished in her heart that his embrace would never end, that the warm heart of the ice wielder would never cease to give her comfort. Closing her eyes tearfully, she remembered what she had wished so many times before.

"Thank you for answering my prayers."


	2. Chapter 2: Night and Day Visitors

For Momo, the rising of the sun and the setting of the moon, that sharp contrast of the darkness and the light, formed the very reality of her existence.

During the daytime, she basked in the light which emanated from Hitsugaya's pure soul. Sometimes, she gave him her full attention, as he would tell her stories about what was happening inside Soul Society, including frightening tales of vampiric creatures known as the Bounto, and the maniacal Kariya who wanted to obliterate Soul Society. Over time, she gradually stopped asking about their development in finding Aizen. Hitsugaya was pleased that he didn't even have to force her to do so.

Other times, the two would remain silent as she cuddled into his innocent embrace. She only wished that she could use her arms again to love him back. With the setting of the sun, Hitsugaya was gone.

Night – although it didn't share the same beauty as the day, the darkness held its own allure. Over time, part of her had become drawn to it. Since she was held hostage in the insane asylum, she would have never predicted getting used to the nightly visitations. However, during the month that passed, she had come to realize another shocking truth. That despite the horrible things that the rapist did to her,

She was beginning to enjoy herself.

Her ears perked up in excitement as her second favorite guest walked his way towards her cell. Allowing her inner demon to come forth, the emotion that used to be fear became a twisted feeling of her own. The thoughts that were hidden from the day sprang back in her mind. Not even she would ever know why this side wasn't discovered so long before.

"Is it already time for my physical, Doctor?"

Playing along with the man's sick fantasy, she put back on her expressions of fear and sorrow, wondering if she could still make it convincing. As the man surrounded by darkness crept towards her, she closed her eyes and from her own sexual deviance, secretly pleasured every moment. It was a defence mechanism created in her mind in order to keep her life, a delusion of the reality she faced until she was finally free.

The moon descended down from the sky, and then it was day.

Unohana went back to the main hospital and scanned the supply closet for the monthly inventory check. Unlike Isane who usually checked the closet weekly, Unohana instinctively knew something was missing. After double checking the forms on her clipboard, her face remained neutral, although she was quite horrified at the same time. A small glass bottle of a strong sedative was found to be half empty, and unaccounted for.

From behind, she sensed that someone was watching her. Closing the supply closet and pretending to disregard any discrepancy, she walked back to continue her duty to treat the sick and wounded. However, she was planning to stay extremely late that night.

It became around midnight, and Unohana hid herself behind a corner near where the storage closet was. With her captain class ranking, hiding her presence was extremely easy for her. Almost convincing herself that she was worrying too much, she heard footsteps – footsteps that shouldn't be wandering around the closed main hospital area. Peeking from the shadows, tears fell to the ground as she saw her promising new recruit of the fourth division twist the cap of the bottle of the sedative, and pour it carefully into a small syringe. She wanted to reject the truth in what she had seen.

As he walked off, Unohana swiftly followed him through the dark corridors of the psychiatric ward. Placing his fist firmly into the guard's open palmed hand, an unidentified amount of coins fell from the tips of his fingers. The guard handed him a shiny object in return, the master key ring.

As the young man straightened out his lab coat and combed down his hair in front of Momo's cell, Unohana gripped her sword knowing full well what she had to do. The guard watched as he opened the cell door, and by taking this moment of opportunity, Unohana charged with incredible vigor and swiftly cut the head clean off the guard's neck. As the new recruit attempted to turn to his side to react to this suddenness, Unohana's sword was already impaled into his chest. As she stared deep into the young man's insane eyes, she formally said her concluding words to him before he died.

"Consider this your termination."


	3. Chapter 3: Hitsugaya's Plea

It wasn't long after that incident that Hitsugaya made his case clearly known to the Divisions, and specifically Unohana, for the permanent release of Hinamori Momo.

"I can no longer trust her to continue living with this lack of security." Hitsugaya declared. "Her stay living in the psychiatric ward can also only worsen her mental condition."

Unohana nodded in guilt, but still had to make her point known to him. "Concerning her specific deliria, our test results have been inconclusive to whether or not she has recovered from –"

"How much more does she have to suffer?" Hitsugaya interrupted sternly, "I've been with her enough to see that it's no longer Aizen that is tormenting her, but this place!"

"How can you be so certain?"

Hitsugaya paused for a moment in an attempt to find the right words, but realized that there was only one truly honest answer that he could give her. "I'm not."

No one would ever truly understand why Unohana actually agreed with the release, but under a promised agreement, from one captain to another, Hitsugaya was to occasionally monitor her behaviour until the medical community would be able to secretly make a definitive conclusion on Hinamori's mental health.

Momo raised her head proudly as she wore her black shinigami's uniform again. Hitsugaya's warm smile filled her soul with joy, as he waited near the entrance of the psychiatric ward to take her home. He wouldn't tell her however, that he was waiting near that entrance ever since Unohana agreed to set her free and that her position in the Gotei was obviously still revoked.

"May I take you home?" he asked.

Nodding enthusiastically, she turned and made a half-hearted dash in front of him. "As long as you can catch up with me!" she yelled.

Although jumping from rooftop to rooftop would seem normal and commonplace to a shinigami, Momo felt an unexpected surge of excitement as her weightlessness flowed with the rustling of the wind. The pores of her body savored the cold sensation on her skin, and her eyes marvelled from the skyward view of the world she lived in. So overwhelmed with the joy of true freedom, she wanted to sing that joy to the skies, if she only knew what song to sing.

As she decided to sprint back to her place, she saw Hitsugaya already waiting for her on her rooftop.

"About time you showed up."

Momo quietly sat down with Hitsugaya on the rooftop. The view of the stars above was much more beautiful than from her cell.

--

"Unohana told me that you would have to keep an eye on me for at least the first month. Is that true?"

"Yes." he said blatantly, "However, it wasn't that duty that encouraged me to walk you home."

Holding back her tears, she nodded and returned a smile. "I suppose since that you're already here –". She paused. "You could stay with me for the night."

"I'll be on your roof if you need me."

"Silly!" she giggled, "Who in their right mind sleeps on a roof?" [*large bright flashing arrows appear, pointing to Hitsugaya*] "What's wrong with sleeping inside? If not that, you should at least keep me company for a while."

"Are you sure I wouldn't be intruding?"

She rolled her eyes. "It's not intruding if I want you to come in, knucklehead!"

As they entered the once abandoned quarters of Hinamori Momo, they were surprised to see that it was as spotless as Ikkaku's bald head. Momo picked up a small folded note on the kitchen counter. As she read the note, she felt overwhelmed with joy. Reading aloud, she said, "Welcome home – _Fourth Division_."

Hitsugaya however, had already seen past their good nature. He had realized that everything, and _anything_ that would ever remind her of Aizen was removed. Hitsugaya became worried that Momo had already realized this truth as well and was hiding her feelings. Hitsugaya felt disappointed that the Fourth Division would stoop so low as to deceive her this way. [Although this wasn't as wrong as stealing Soi Fong's gigantic stash of Yourichi stuff.]

His train of thought was interrupted by her sweet words.

"Is it alright if I take a shower?" Momo asked. Being in a straightjacket for a month, after all, didn't help with hygiene.

Blushing slightly, he replied, "Didn't they offer you a shower before you left?

"I didn't want to be in there longer than I had to."

Taking an extremely relaxed laid out pose on her sofa, he nodded. It wasn't until ten long minutes and a gratuitous anime girl shower scene later that she came back to her guest.

"How long does it take you to —" Hitsugaya was at a loss for words. She was beautiful, yet there wasn't anything that she was wearing that made her so. In speaking, she really wasn't wearing much at all-- loose fanel pyjamas and an open housecoat. She didn't even bother combing back up the attractive bun in her hair.

"Oh, this?" she replied, pointing to her choice in apparel. "I hope you don't mind that I wear something less restrictive." Understanding that this was a reasonable change from her recent life, he decided that he would have to keep it cool. Of course, that plan didn't last long when she leaped onto him on the sofa.

"I still owe you for all those hugs."

Before he had a chance to react, she squeezed him tightly in her arms, rubbing herself up and down his body in the purest form of a girl hug. As Momo lifted her head to get up from her position, she felt a loving hand stroke her hair. As she turned her face back down towards his, his eyes dropped lovingly, and his face shone with absolute content. Momo leaned forward, and as they closed their eyes, their lips locked. However, as soon as they were getting into the heat of their embrace, Momo pulled herself away. Hitsugaya silently agreed that this was going too fast.

Getting off the sofa and straightening himself out, he said, "I better get back to my own quarters. It's getting late."

"Couldn't you at least stay with me for tonight?" she asked.

Hitsugaya nodded. "I understand," he replied, "I'll stay on your roof then, so then you can call if you need me."

"What did I tell you about sleeping on roofs, silly? I want you to sleep with me. A bed mattress is much more comfortable than roof tiles anyways. "

"Whoa! Are you still crazy?!"

She giggled. "We won't be doing anything like that."

Hitsugaya, as a man, couldn't comprehend any truth in those words. Sleeping in the same bed and nothing will happen. Yeah right.

--


	4. Chapter 4: Conclusion

Momo excitedly hopped onto her fashionably large Queen-sized bed. As she stoked her recently cleaned bed sheets with her fingertips, her body delighted in a sensual experience which contrasted the uncomfortable floor of the insane asylum. Curling up underneath them, her eyes invited him to join her in this bliss.

Hitsugaya placed his zanpaktou on the open sword rack, and for a little bit of show, slowly took off his top. He leaped in the bed beside her, although keeping quite a considerable distance on the edge of the mattress. Momo inched a little bit closer towards him. Looking blankly at the roof, her mind was lost in the future.

"What do you think is going to become – of us?" she asked.

She turned her head to see that he was already sound asleep. Stroking his face gently with the backs of her fingers, she gently kissed him on the cheek. It no longer mattered what the future held for her, just as long as she could have him by her side.

Before she closed her eyes to dream about her ending of living happily ever after, she had forgotten something. There was still one last barrier she would have yet to confront, the greatest barrier of all. A tear streamed down her eye. In her mind, an internal battle emerged.

_Momo – I thought you loved me._ Momo remained silent, trying to ignore the voice in her mind, the one that could only belong to Aizen.

_Did you already forget your task of love for me? How one day, we together would reign as the King and Queen over all life, all of Soul Society?!_

"Of course I remember, but – things change."

She remembered how she was originally part of Aizen's plan, how before he was to stage his own death, he told her everything that was going to pass. The only task that he asked her for was to put on the act of her life: to pretend that she was completely fooled by Aizen's scheme, as to gain the trust of others, and become an inside spy.

Of course, this was done masterfully well. When she fought Ichimaru, Hitsugaya truly believed she was fighting out of true passion and rage on unfounded accusations, whilst the purpose was to deceive. The stab through her chest was carefully planned – executed as to not impale any of her vital points. This was the ultimate sacrifice she gave to Aizen so that one day she could betray Soul Society from the inside. So the greatest illusion didn't involve Aizen's zanpaktou at all, but the woman that admired him even to the point of sacrificing her own body.

_You shall never change Momo. No matter how much you want to believe it, you will always belong to me._

"No." she thought with great confidence. "I was a fool to believe in you... and to love you. Now I understand what true love feels like."

_Hitsugaya? Don't make me laugh! You promised to kill him, to take advantage of his compassion and disguise the slaying as a product of blind rage over my death. I expected you to fail of course, but I wanted to see if you were that loyal to me. I was right._

"I'm not loyal to you anymore!" She wanted to forget her dark past, but his voice shook the very depths of her heart.

_All you have to do is kill him, and I will forgive you of your betrayal against me._

"It's over Aizen! I will never harm a single white hair on his head. He is the one I choose to be with me forever. I want you to leave, and never come back!"

Aizen laughed maniacally. _I'll be seeing you very soon._

Momo opened her eyes violently. Turning to her side, she was relieved that Hitsugaya was still there. She wished that she could have loved him from the beginning and joined his division. Washing her face hurriedly, she looked into the face in the mirror. She smiled.

"I no longer love Aizen. I'm finally free from his control."  
_Then why am I still thinking about his proposal?_

Her eyes widened in horror. She stumbled back into the bedroom, her mind confused with emotion. She passionately looked at the innocent Hitsugaya lying soundly on her bed.

"I will always be faithful to him."  
_Then why am I walking towards his sword?_

"I would never plan to harm him in any way."  
_Then why am I taking the sword out of its sheath? _

Her eyes filled with tears. "I will never kill the one I love." She crawled upon him over the covers, with her hands tightly gripped on the handle of the sword. The blade pointed downwards towards his chest, as the last thought passed her mind. _Then why am I doing this?_

__________________________________

"Murder, murder! Murder in Soul Society! Murder!"

Hanatarou's alarmed cries pierced the silence of the early day in Soul Society. The captains and vice captains gathered quickly, only to see a sight they wished to never see again. Hitsugaya's impaled corpse hung on the Tower with his very own sword – the same tower that Aizen was once crucified on long ago.


End file.
